break his back with money--when
ten dollars will do just as well."

"Yes, I do!" said Rimrock, "didn't I borrow his picked rock? Well,
keep out then; I know my friends. He'll be drunk for a month and at
the end of his fiesta he won't have a dollar to his name, but as long
as he lives he can tell the other hombres about that big sack of money
he had."

Rimrock laid down one big bill, which paid for all the dollars, and
walked out of the bank on air. He was feeling rich--that wealthy
feeling that penny-pinchers never know--and all the world, except L. W.
Lockhart, seemed responsive to his smile. Men who had shunned him for
years now shook his hand and refused to take back what they had lent.
They even claimed they had forgotten all about it or had intended their
loans as stakes. With his pockets full of money it was suddenly
impossible for Rimrock to spend a dollar. In the Alamo Saloon, where
his friends were all gathered in a determined assault on the bar, his
popularity was so intense that the drinks fairly jumped at him and he
slipped out the back way to escape. There was one duty more--both a
duty and a pleasure--and he headed for the Gunsight Hotel.

The news of his success, whatever it was, had preceded him hours
before. Andrew McBain had hid out, the idle women were all a-twitter;
but Mary Roget Fortune was calm. She had heard the news from the very
first moment, when L. W. had dropped in on McBain; but the more she
heard of his riotous prodigality the more it left her cold. His return
to town reminded her painfully of that other time when he had come.
She had watched for him then, her knight from the desert, worn and
ragged but with his sack full of gold; but he had passed her by without
a word, and now she did not care.

She looked up sharply as he came at last, a huge form, half-blocking
the door; and Rimrock noticed the change. Perhaps his sudden
popularity had made him unduly sensitive--he felt instinctively that
she did not approve.

"Do you mind my cigar?" he asked, stopping awkwardly half way to her
desk; and he suddenly came to life as she answered:

"Why, yes. Since you ask me, I do."

That was straight enough and Rimrock cast his fifty-cent cigar like a
stogie out of the door. Then he came back towards her with his big
head thrust out and a searching look in his eyes. She had greeted him
politely, but it was not the manner of the girl he had expected to see.
Somehow, without knowin